Underdogs Bootstrappers Gamechangers
Welcome to the "Underdogs Bootstrappers Gamechangers" podcast, where we celebrate the relentless spirit of those who defy the odds, challenge the status quo, and make a lasting impact in their fields. Join us as we dive into the inspiring stories and strategies of bootstrappers, underdogs, and gamechangers from various industries.
In each episode, we'll explore the remarkable journeys of individuals who have built their success from the ground up. From starting with limited resources to overcoming obstacles, these entrepreneurs have mastered the art of creating something extraordinary out of nothing. Get ready to be motivated, learn valuable lessons, and gain insights into what it takes to make a difference in your own endeavors.
Through engaging interviews and thought-provoking discussions, we'll delve into the mindset and strategies that fuel the success of bootstrappers, underdogs, and gamechangers. Discover how they turned their disadvantages into advantages, harnessed their unique perspectives, and disrupted industries with their innovative ideas.
Whether you're a budding entrepreneur, a business professional seeking inspiration, or simply someone who appreciates the power of human resilience, this podcast is for you. Our goal is to empower you with actionable tips, practical advice, and a renewed sense of determination to pursue your dreams fearlessly.
Join us on this exciting journey as we explore the untold stories of individuals who have redefined the rules, shattered expectations, and left an indelible mark on their industries. Get ready to be inspired, uplifted, and motivated to unleash your own potential as a bootstrap, underdog, or gamechanger.
Tune in to the "Bootstrap, Underdog, Gamechanger" podcast and join our community of like-minded individuals who believe that anyone, regardless of their background or circumstances, can create meaningful change. Together, let's celebrate the underdogs who rise, the gamechangers who innovate, and the bootstrappers who make their dreams a reality.
In every podcast we produce, we stand by our "content for good" principle. This means that if we ever earn money from this or any of our other podcasts, we will donate 100% of the proceeds to charitable causes. Specifically, any revenue from "Underdogs" will be used to financially support new small business startups.
Underdogs Bootstrappers Gamechangers
IS MONEY BLOCKING YOUR DREAM? HERE’S HOW TO BEGIN! WITH DAVEED BENITO
People often focus on all the reasons why they can’t achieve something—lack of money, equipment, or confidence. But what if we flipped the script? Let’s talk about all the ways you can break through those barriers. 💡
We believe this is the moment for independent creators to rise, break the rules, and maybe even reshape the entertainment industry. Hollywood might just have to step aside. Are you ready to conquer your fear of the camera and start creating? 🎥
In this episode, I’m joined by my friend and business partner, Daveed Benito, who started with nothing—literally having to choose between buying a Home Depot light for photography or eating that week. Through grit and determination, he’s worked his way up to collaborating with some of the biggest bands and brands on the planet, from music videos for The Offspring to major campaigns for Walmart.
I’ll also share some of my own scrappy DIY hacks for filmmaking and discuss how affordable tech is leveling the playing field. We’ll explore the evolution of music videos, the battle between TikTok and YouTube, and how AI is opening up incredible opportunities for creators everywhere.
We want you to leave this episode thinking, That thing I thought I couldn’t start? I’m going to figure out how. This episode is a celebration of underdogs, fearless creativity, and breaking norms. If you’re ready to stop making excuses and start making magic, this is the inspiration you’ve been waiting for. 🚀
Hello and welcome to underdogs, bootstrappers and game changers. This is for those of you that are starting with nothing and using business to change their stars, motivating people who disrupted industry standards. This is the real side of business. This isn't Shark Tank. My aim with this podcast is to take away some of the imaginary roadblocks that are out there. I want to help more underdogs, because underdogs are truly who change the world. This is part of our Content for Good initiative. All the proceeds from the monetization of this podcast will go to charitable causes. It's for the person that wants it.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to another episode of Underdogs, bootstrappers, game Changers. And guess what? I got my great friend Daveed here today. Motherfucker, all right, yet another one of my friends that does amazing things and is super afraid of the camera. And we were just talking about it right before the episode started. Believe it or not, I was the most afraid that you could ever be of the camera. I mean, I turned down four reality shows in our first business. They approached us, you know, wanting to do it. I was like no way, you know, I was afraid to even say like if you talk to me about the business, it's like yeah, I'd say I work there.
Speaker 2:You know you could probably never. In the club days I wanted to be on a reality show, I wanted to do this and that, but I don't know what's changed. But I've always liked being. You know. Now it's behind the scenes, but I have footage from those days like terabytes, because I would have cameras following me through the clubs. And I look back and it's good because it's humility and I'm going. And I look back and it's good because it's humility and I'm going, oh no.
Speaker 1:You know part of me. I was approached really young to 21 or something like that with a reality show when I was doing the concert stuff and like I'm kind of glad for not doing that.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, well, I mean, I knew people that did it, yeah, and I still know some that are, you know, later in life, yeah, and you know later in life, yeah, and you know a couple of them still holding on to that.
Speaker 1:I mean well, and the other thing is like, how many stupid things did we do when we were 20? Oh yeah, and that's now. That's out there for the world. The poor kids now growing up with social media their stuff's out there anyway.
Speaker 2:It's right in front of you, yeah. I mean I was being the idiot filming, you know, having the uh, you know film crews follow in everything, but never did anything stupid on camera. Yeah, but I can just imagine that the 20, 20 something year old oh.
Speaker 1:God. So David is my business partner in our uh, bigger production company, um, and so I invited him on today because, like, his story is an underdog story, um, so kind of like some preface. Like this year we've done offspring music video, so got really cool shout out to castles and coasters, by the way. And yes, yes, uh, like they let us go out there. It's here in Phoenix, um, and it's an amusement park. And they let us, like, can I use the word, free reign?
Speaker 2:They really like it was free reign. Yeah, I mean they Gail, she was the point of contact, but trying to get a hold of them. The initial idea was to film in Santa Monica and that came with a lot of restrictions and castles and coasters, came with a lot of like, less restriction and a lot of freedom, and they actually like set the rides for me to say like let's go now, yeah, you know, in the summertime, so you know you don't have anything.
Speaker 1:It was a really cool experience being able to be and then like we made those poor kids ride the roller coaster.
Speaker 2:The actors, oh they loved it Like 50 times. Yeah, Shout out to them too. I mean, they loved it Like 50 times.
Speaker 1:Yeah, shout out to them too.
Speaker 2:I mean they, they loved it, they were, they were, you know, all happy about those scenes. I of course made the excuse of, like I got to operate the camera so I can't get on that fucking thing. No way, no.
Speaker 1:I really enjoy when we get to work on those projects. Did another one for Walmart this year.
Speaker 2:Played around with some stuff for Yellowstone's food product brand got to be the cowboy got a Stetson hat out of the deal, yeah, and of all this stuff. It's been an adventure last couple of years and it's been interesting to see where it's going, compared to what I've been doing for the last 15, 16 years out of the 18, almost 19 years.
Speaker 1:I mean, and folks I want to preface this for you too. David is another one of my friends that won't get in front of the camera. I've dragged him in here today. Um, he like he could have a laundry list of people that he's worked with that you would recognize, um, when we do shoots, uh, he will sew the costume or, excuse me, the dress for somebody. He will make the jewelry from scratch. He will build a robot, if that's what it takes to get that production done. He turned, uh, one of our studio buildings into a graveyard the other day and shot this really cool. Actually, we'll try to post some pictures in this video so you can see, like, some of that stuff and, um, amazing creative that I work with and I really enjoy when we get to work on really cool projects together.
Speaker 2:I love that stuff. It's just about you know documenting it. I have such a hard time with self promotion. That's why my social media is, you know, it's never consistent. Yeah, what I built social media on was a platform that I was utilizing for, for monetization, which was publishing, and that involved a lot of the you know, posters and girls and stuff like that which I guarantee you've seen some of his posters out there and stuff, whether you know it or not, yeah, they're.
Speaker 2:I mean they, they've been put through so many stores and so many places and stolen countless times. So you know it's not me making all that money with it. It's other people, you know, stealing it. But the thing is that's not who I am, that's not my persona. All the girl stuff, the models, you know I love working with those people. It's been amazing to do that. It's just I'm behind a curtain, I don't show my face and I don't talk about much, and so people have an idea about me.
Speaker 1:Well, what's interesting too? It's like people are going to have those perceptions too, and you and I have known each other a long time, and I even had some of those perceptions about you when we first met. Of course I feel bad about it now. No-transcript true at all.
Speaker 1:You know, and like it's. It's so funny about my friends that are like these hidden gems, like David and squally is another person that's been on here. You know it's like you guys are doing so many amazing things and the people out there that are popular for doing these things aren't even holding a candle to you guys doing these things, like squally and fitness.
Speaker 2:He builds his own equipment, literally has a whole welding shop that he builds his own equipment and invents workouts, you know, and that's that's what I would have loved starting out with this. Um, because that's what I had to do with all of my equipment, I couldn't afford anything, so I had to make my own filming rigs, and all that too.
Speaker 1:That's where I want to go today and that's where you know I always have a hidden agenda, you know. Yes.
Speaker 1:I want to help my friend face, fear, um and uh and get him out there in the world. But uh, hidden agenda for you folks today. Um, the message is everybody says I need this to start, I need that to start. I was working with somebody yesterday and she's like I need this and I need that and like thousands of dollars worth of stuff. I'm like no, you don't, you don't need that stuff. And so let's backtrack for a second. Like you, first start getting into photography right With generally is really expensive. Like I have a couple thousand dollar camera that I shoot photos with.
Speaker 2:Oh, and it's nothing in comparison to what it was back in 2006. Talk about it when I started in 2006, I had the most base model of a Canon, yeah, and that was still about $1,000, and it was a kit lens just crap. But for me, I didn't look at this as learning photography. I even went to college and took some classes of photography and dropped them quick, mainly because they wanted me to get into film, and I realized I'm broke, yeah, and I started this. I'm telling you so broke.
Speaker 2:It was a decision of $50 to either eat food or purchase dome lights from Home Depot, and I literally can show a picture of these things. I had no idea about color, temperature, lighting, anything technical. To this day, I really don't rely on anything technical, and when people, I mean, just as you know, we work for a magazine. One of the many fights that I got into with people was the editor, and it was about how I Photoshop something and he had a whole way of complaining about it. We got into a fight and he said I went through and just did it 30 minutes, sent it to him and I said I get to the same result. Yeah, this is what it looks like. It's better than what you were doing.
Speaker 1:You know not to brag, but that's how uh it's a good point because you know, like we teach certain somebody a certain way and say it has to be done this way.
Speaker 2:Well, curriculum, yeah you look at, uh, everything from how we were taught math to how it's taught now. Sure, when I look at photography and I look at, you know, people, like even somebody who may have worked with recently they're technical, yeah, but it kind of loses the magic. They're holding onto something and romanticizing of the way it should be. Yeah, and we live in such a, you know God, creatively diverse environment in this world that why does it have to be in these constraints? When I started this, I didn't want to follow the uh, the rules, and part of it was, yeah, I wanted shortcuts. You know, there was a sense of two things survival for me, and that's one of the, the, the things, that's instinctual fucking survival, um, which I've really have been shedding over the past few years and being a little more comfortable, but in the beginning it wasn't about. You know, I need to technically do this, I need to frame this like this, I need to use this type of lens. I was just gathering all the crap that I needed to to create what I wanted. The first photographs I ever took were in my backyard of firecrackers in a bottle, because I just wanted to capture the motion of it. I didn't know what I was doing for the next five years. I still didn't know what I was doing, but it you know the fucking first business card, it's still on my refrigerator because it's, you know, I like to bring myself back down to earth. Yeah, I have a business card where I made what was called a multiple.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I've done a handful of these throughout the years where, like Sean Marion from the Suns was in one, carey Hart, the motocross guy, yep, and the first one I did, I had an idea. I was like I can put myself in one photo, but like five of me, and I have like five different characters in this photo and one of me is without a shirt on. Uh, now I put this on my very first fucking business card and under it says I do weddings. So I found this not that long ago, showed my wife and of course she's like like really, I'm like okay, I didn't know any better, you know, but that's how I started. You know it was. It was a concept. How do I utilize these tools to get to that concept? And, not having money, you have to really navigate resourceful.
Speaker 2:You have to navigate through um what you don't have and it's. I can tell you so many times about wanting to give up because I see these other people that were, you know, nepo babies in LA having everything gifted to them. Their parents were in the industry. For the 18 years I've been doing this, I'm still an outsider. You know I'm not respected through some of those channels. I don't do things the way I'm supposed to Most people. You know bullshit rules.
Speaker 1:You know, I want to bolster that too.
Speaker 1:It's like there's a good documentary on Netflix, uh and uh, it's like the 30 for 30, but this one's about the yacht racing in um uh, I guess the Americans, for they're so heavily funded there's a yacht race that they just destroy everybody on and these kinds of scrappy Australians came out of nowhere and they actually hired an engineer that was like out of a different industry and the boat had always been built the same way, and then he actually uh, took a shot at it and he built the rudder system completely different and when they first came out, like the Australians, this is, this is like a bigger upset than like any in like sports history really, and they're just killing them and they're like disguising the rudder, basically.
Speaker 1:But the point was it's like this guy came out of a different industry and said why don't we do this rudder thing a different way? And that boat now is the way they build boats still, and it's like that's what I see about your style too. It's like you didn't lock into like somebody else's style. You found your own, and I think that's what gives it so much beauty.
Speaker 2:I found my own. It was adopted, though I mean, when I started it was looking at other people's work, you know, in earlier in the industry, you know having relationships, you know, with someone that was model, getting to go to photo shoots and see other people that I thought were way better, and then also being told, like you can't be here because I don't want you to see my secrets. Yeah, and after being told that so many times and trying to contact people through MySpace, you know, people were assholes to me. I didn't understand the simplest concept of how that flash worked or why it worked. Yeah, and it was like mind blowing to me when a guy that I knew, yzie Doug Yazzie he was another photographer really loved his work. Yeah, I had gotten a studio. I acquired the studio. It was just a bare warehouse with swamp, cooler and Tempe, okay, on university, and this place was, you know, rundown. Yeah, and a couple of people had a print shop. Friends, I used the back of this place. Uh, friend, you know, made friends with this.
Speaker 2:This guy, yazi, um, he had lights which were, you know, like holy shit, these were thousands of dollars. Yeah, strobe lights still no concept how they worked. He came by one time, uh, brought some friend photographers I have a back alley and there's these big bay doors and they had a model standing there and it's all shadowed and it's all in the background, sunny. They snap a photo, it goes right to the laptop. She is lit up beautifully and I just go what the fuck was that how? And he helped me learn that and so we made a deal. You can use the studio whenever you want, keep the lights here. I could use lights. Yeah, so that was my first you know real um introduction to that. Yeah, he was, you know he was.
Speaker 1:He was very helpful and instrumental in in showing me the concept of lighting and strobe lighting when you um, let's talk about like, like, I know one of the things that you did when you first started. You were using those like $2 flashlights at home Depot.
Speaker 2:Well, uh, the flashlights. The flashlights actually came later on. I was using dome. You know these, those dome lights, little silver things from home Depot. Yeah, the flashlights came later on and I think it was more of um, a reflection of where I started.
Speaker 2:Okay, and when I first started that I I thought, well, why couldn't I just utilize something from, you know, the broke photographer who's getting into this? Cameras are getting cheaper. You can get one of my old cameras, you know used one, for a few hundred dollars. Yeah, why couldn't I use, you know, flashlights to light a scene and create something cinematic? Um, and I think the first one I did was with my wife. We were in Marina Del Rey place. We used to rent out their little apartment and, and I put this scene together. We can cut to that too to show it. But I mean, she sat for two hours while I tried to light this scene and I was able to do it.
Speaker 2:But when I had proof of concept, I thought this is great, this is amazing, I can do something, but I can show people. Hey, you don't need to have a huge budget. Yeah, because that was the problem I had is where I started was the pie in the sky. Yeah, I really looked at like the big production is where I want to be. Sure, I want the most expensive lights. Never could afford that. Um, so I had to force myself and be resourceful to get to you know where I at least felt like I wanted to be, or you?
Speaker 1:know I, I want to, like, I want to and I hope I don't preface this question wrong but it's like so we have right right now. It's like you can go out there and buy a ten thousand dollar camera to shoot photos with right and then like you have some like in the quality of the photographer. It's like, weigh in for me, a amazing photographer with a cheap camera versus a crappy photographer with the best camera on the planet. What's the better photo?
Speaker 2:I mean that's, that's subjective. Um, some people fall into it. I have fallen into photo shoots where I go, holy shit, I didn't know I was going to create that. I have a plan, but there has been times throughout my career where I put something together. It's not necessarily this genuine plan. To the client I'll bullshit it Like that's what I meant to do, but I also. That was a learning moment for me too.
Speaker 2:But going back to your question, you can have and I've seen it, I've seen photographers that they shoot all natural light. Yeah, and we'll get into this too, because where I started, I started half you know ass backwards. Yeah, from from how lighting works. But I've seen photographers that do this beautiful natural light stuff and it was stuff I could never do. But they couldn't get into a studio. They couldn't do anything with strobe lights, they couldn't manipulate light. A studio, they couldn't do anything with strobe lights. They couldn't manipulate light. Yeah, they knew a reflector. The problem I had was I started completely backwards. Okay, I started with strobe lights in a studio because we were still in that era of like fashion. Yeah, and I was nowhere near fashion.
Speaker 2:But David LaChapelle was a photographer that I like. I really just, um, I looked at his work and I was just so impressed, enamored with it. Yeah, um, his stuff was so colorful, he had set design, he had budgets. Yeah, uh, I, he was someone that I wanted to kind of start modeling my work with. There was another guy out of, I don't even know if I'll mention his name, but he would do these live photo shoot things, but everything was based in strobe lighting. So when I learned, I learned the more expensive route, I learned the non-technical stuff and I learned how to manipulate my lighting, versus starting out with the basics, which is, just how do you light with a window? Yeah, you know how do you create soft shadows.
Speaker 2:And so it took until my wife, you know I, when I had met her, we had gotten married and she was doing some modeling and she was doing it for fun. You know, she's very competitive person. She did it for fun, but I wanted her to work with some other people, cause I, I wanted her to see how my industry was. And she got to work with some some good photographers and I loved some of the photos, cause I was like, oh my God, I see her in a different light, but natural light with some of them I was like, okay, I needed to learn this.
Speaker 2:It took that that long, um, you know, for me to start learning natural light, and when I started I was still struggling and cheating it because I had my old ways. Yeah, and this is what we do. When we don't know, we revert to default yeah, that's what I call it Um, to where you, you scare yourself and you don't push yourself to the next challenge, and that's fine sometimes, but if you're not learning to move forward, so learning the natural light it was, uh, you know, falling on my face. So then I started renting studios that had natural light and then I started understanding I could take video lighting and I can create and manipulate light and make it look like natural light, and so that was allowing me to take some of my skills from strobe lighting, studio stuff to, um, you know, making soft shadows with video lighting and less expensive stuff. Yeah, but all of that kind of led into the flashlight photography, okay, you know where, where it was like, oh, an idea of the broke photographer again.
Speaker 1:And that's what I want people to really understand. It's like you know, you don't have to have every fancy item on the planet to start this stuff. Actually, there's another story I'll drop here which I actually think has been on this podcast before, but it's one of my favorites. It's this guy that wanted to get into the belt business and he'll remember here some of the details, but it's like it wants to get in the belt business Machine costs a hundred thousand dollars, Doesn't have a hundred thousand dollars, right? He could just say I don't have a hundred thousand dollars, I have to fundraise, I have to do whatever I got to do to get to the a hundred thousand dollars. Instead, he thought about what do I, what do I have, Right? And he had $10,000. So he went out there to home Depot or something, got a bunch of parts and he built a machine for $10,000. And that machine was actually better than the a hundred thousand dollar machine and recreated the whole industry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, and it's sometimes you have to fall, you, you have to work in reverse. Um, it's funny, because now you're you're telling me about, you're talking about the quality of like equipment.
Speaker 1:Yeah, uh god, how long ago was this? Well, I have like some nice cameras and stuff. It's like I'm never gonna out shoot you. You could have the, you could have the world's crappiest camera and you're still gonna out shoot me, even with the better camera and I think.
Speaker 2:Think that's it's spatial awareness lighting. I mean, there's a lot of factors with it, but I have the reason I say this reminded me of something I always would dream too big. To this day. I still do. Yeah, I think nothing wrong with that. It is when you don't have the budget for it. But I have this change jar and I still have it Cause I just remembered I still have this thing that I keep, like keys and stuff, and it's hidden, but I forgot what I wrapped around it and it's an ad from BH photo and this is probably, you know, 13, 14 years ago, Okay, Maybe longer, but it was an ad. And back then, if you want to, you know, compete, compete, If you want to compete with the big guys Annie Leibovitz, Dave LaChapelle they were using Maya. They were using I think it's Maya I'm probably saying that wrong but the cameras and Hasselblad. Hasselblad was the brand. Okay, Hasselblad was the brand.
Speaker 2:Sounds like David Hasselhoff to me, hasselblad was like that's the, you know, and this camera, beautiful, these things. And then the lenses, of course, starting at like $8,000. But this body I cut this out from the magazine and it was $30,000 without the lens and that was going to be my goal. I was like I want that. And as technology has changed, this really shows how this industry has evolved and technology moving fast. Now I can take the cameras that I'm, you know, using now, the, the sonys, yeah, um, and I'm sitting there looking oh, I can do what that camera used to be able to do. Of course, there's, there's a lot more to it. Technically, I'm not a technical guy, but I looked, uh, actually, just probably last year, I was like where's that camera now? Yeah, it still exists, sure, and it's more, I think the enthusiast, the, the collector, it's like 1500 bucks. No, it's still up there. How much is it? It's still probably 30, you know, 30 grand.
Speaker 2:Uh, it's not that, though. Yeah, hasselblad, the brand, was known for making these what called, uh, medium frame. You know, cameras, yeah, and it's just the size of a sensor. Basically, they don't. They don't make these cameras anymore. Now they're doing the same thing that sony's doing and canon's doing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's all digital there's no shutter, and that's the thing too. It's like there's that movie, the creator, that just came out not too long ago. But this guy, like he went out of his way to like show, like the people out there you know, kind of like what we're talking about today, it's like not to give up on starting. So he went out there with an FX three. It's the same one we use to shoot our docu series all over the world and you know it's not cheap, cheap, but we're talking like five grand with a lens. It's a fraction, it's a fraction, but but he went out, he, he filmed that whole movie which is incredible, with a $7,000 camera to show you like, hey, it's not $400,000 constraint from making a movie anymore, you know seeing.
Speaker 2:That's the kind of constructive, uh stubborn, that I like, because he's going out of his way to be like fuck you. Yeah, I don't need that. You know, I can make this with this type of camera Now.
Speaker 1:The barrier and entry just went. Yeah On filming.
Speaker 2:But here's the thing. Yeah, he made a point. Yeah, but there's, there is more to it. There's the entire rig. This thing is on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, is.
Speaker 2:Well, I see that. I think it's more of like. I appreciate the stubbornness. Yeah, of course he needed more to add to that thing. Yeah, but at the base of it, the foundation was that camera. Oh yeah, and it, you know what is $3,000 camera, $4,000 camera.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's, it's changed, like there's a couple of, there's a lot of things in film changing and you and I are keeping a big eye on it, obviously, with the work that we're doing.
Speaker 1:But it's like that camera bringing down the barrier to entry so we don't have to rent the RED and those other cameras anymore to make good production. I mean, the other thing that's happening right now is this happens with the video game industry too, and I was watching an interview with Matt Damon and Matt Damon's like, basically, like you can't make a goodwill hunting anymore. Or, you know, like these really like interesting scripts, because if you make an X-Men, for instance, or a Marvel, you know you're going to put, let's say, a million dollars into it. You're going to get, you know, like sorry, it'd be more like 50 million. You're going to get like 300 out of it, right, that's safe, you know. But if you put 30 million into a goodwill hunting, you may or may not win, right. And so like that's where I really think creatives, you know, are going to come out because they're not afraid to make those film anymore and now the camera's achievable.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's. It's um evolutionary stupidity on people. The viewer Show me colors and splashes. Let's lose storyline. You're never going to see a Shawshank Redemption again. Yeah, that's sad, but you can. But what it turns into is people not being so fucking greedy.
Speaker 1:That, and I think it's going to take independence, and I think that's where it's going to take the bootstrappers.
Speaker 2:It's going to take the person that has the money. So, not to get into a different subject, but when you're looking at someone who's a billionaire these days, versus how it was, you know, 50 years ago, 60 years ago, 70 years ago, the Vanderbilts, they were creating places, libraries, they were creating public spaces. Yeah, there is no philanthropy anymore. Yeah, so these people, it's nothing but fucking greed on that end, but it takes someone that has that money, that's why I want to win the lottery?
Speaker 1:Yeah, cause I'm having fun. Some fun shit I don't care. Well, I you know that's. I think the world is really opening up to the scrappy bootstrappers I really do, you know like, especially in film, because you can go out there right now and you can create a script. That's amazing. I mean, that's how Matt Damon and uh uh, ben Affleck got started. From what I know, it's like they wrote um goodwill hunting, I think it was, and that blasted them into stardom. And somebody out there right now has written a script. They can get with some buddies by a $5,000 FX three and you can make a production now. You know it's like and there's a shot. You put that thing on YouTube. It even gives you a platform, you know it's like, and if you do it clever and creative enough, you can blast off. I totally believe this.
Speaker 2:Well, and I think there's such a gradient to the level of scripting and production that exists right now, yeah, and I can see that there's a lot of criticism from the old school heads that look at this and they go this is how a film should be.
Speaker 2:That look at this and they go this is how a film should be, this is how it should always should be done this way, yeah, and that's that's kind of bullshit. Honestly, it's definitely bullshit, and I found myself handing that criticism at times, and now I I have opened my mind to it and thought no, I've watched a hundred different shorts on YouTube, yeah, and I've also watched other, you know, little skits from these little production houses. They're a couple of guys, yeah, okay, so some of them are flashes. They're lost in the wind, yeah, but Vine was a part of that, yeah, and I remember when Vine was super popular, you had these short-ass clips and people still reminisce on some of that. They're not the feature films. As much as I kind of want to shit on that and be like, oh, it's not the stuff that's going to be in history. Yeah, it is, it just is.
Speaker 1:You never, you never know. Like there's a good story around home alone. I don't know if you've heard this story before, but home alone was really under budget. They almost didn't make it, you know. And then, like they had to hire, like the B team, you Master's dad could have just paid for it with that fucking house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, have you seen those things on where they analyze the house and what he has to be making? But it's like so they hired this B team because that's all they could afford and their director of photography was, like usually, an assistant and so he's so afraid to screw up right that he actually used what he called the chicken cam, which was a smaller cam, to like back record everything in case he messed it up. And that chicken cam ended up being a cam they used in so many different ways. You know the scene where he's dropping the iron through and it hits him in the face. It's like that ended up being some of the genius parts of the film and it was all from a fear and a guy that was thinking about it differently and that's what kind of made the movie. That stuff's incredible.
Speaker 2:No-transcript, you have to and we all have, you know, the fear of failure. Sure, and the thing is, if you're not failing enough, you're not learning. And you're not learning. Yeah, you're not pushing it, you're really not. And you know I still struggle with that to this day. You know it's nothing I'm ever going to really shed, but no it. It really takes a lot for someone to go through and fail but also step back and examine what went wrong and what. What are you learning from this?
Speaker 1:How good did the winds feel? Yeah, you know, it's like he. The last offspring video wasn't the like. Not this one, but the one two times ago. Didn't you spend like 10 days in the pool underwater?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, we did. I think we did just a couple, a couple of days there, or I don't remember. I think it was one or two days. Well, and then you had to figure out cause they're underwater.
Speaker 1:Camera equipment is expensive. Well, there's a right way to do it Well a supposed right way to do it.
Speaker 2:Well, and that's the thing is, I had a smaller budget and I didn't know what I was really getting into. And that's kind of the thing that I do with some projects I don't know what I'm getting into, so I overwhelm myself. But the fear of change is what I look forward to.
Speaker 1:But you always figure out a way to do it. You know it's like instead of like. I don't know how they usually do it. I would assume it's usually like a $100,000 system or something like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and there's various ways and things that you can buy for it.
Speaker 1:But it's the. Where was I getting at? I mean, you're one of those people that epitomizes. You don't figure out all the ways you can't do it, you figure out a way you can. I've seen it over and over again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and the thing is I don't look at it that way. I hate to say this, but there's always that that cloud that I kind of carry. It's my own burden. Um, I don't feel the winds as much as I should and it's mainly because I don't feel like I give myself the credit that others do. Yeah, you know you talk me up.
Speaker 1:I hate, I don't talk you up at all. I just tell people what is you, you know, and like, if it sounds like a talk you up, it's because that's because you've done some cool stuff.
Speaker 2:And it's hard for me to in my own personal being. I can accept that. I can sit there and I think about and reflect about my career. I think about what I'm done. I'm proud of what I've done and I'm proud of the things I've created. It's just hard for me to gloat on that publicly. Yeah, it really is.
Speaker 1:Like that's why you can't speak your own praises. So I sure as heck will, you know, and so and like, like the stuff I see you pull off is incredible. You know it's like I'm not the artistic person here. You know David is. You know it's like and I can always count on he's going to figure it out. I can like. It doesn't matter what we have to build or do, it's like he figures out a way to do that. You know it's like every single time. It's like you jump over to home Depot and you grab a couple of things and that helps, somehow becomes the missing link to what we were trying to do.
Speaker 2:It it also can be a problem with collecting, you know, bullshit and stuff that I don't need. In my house we literally purged because, you know, we just two of us in a house decent size way too much shit. Yeah, and I have my garage. It is packed, can't park a car in it because I have equipment, and then I have shelving which is shit in it. A bunch of shit, and I love doing that.
Speaker 2:And as much as I want to go build, I have custom art frames that I've built that are just sitting in rooms because I have nowhere to put them. I don't want them really up in my house. But I used to have the Goddard Gallery in Las Vegas. I took over almost 50% of one of their galleries with canvases and I would put custom stuff in there and of course, they would take 50%, you know, of the profit. But hey, it was getting sold and seen. Yeah, now I have this stuff. So the limitation what kind of sucks for me is, I want to be more creative, I want to build more stuff, but I also have to be practical, especially as I got older. What am I going to do with this, this? Where is this going to go afterwards?
Speaker 2:I mean I I think, if we could, we'd be daily working on projects just that were fun for us, yeah I mean, when I look at the space as a studio, I think, oh, this would be great. I can build and store a bunch of shit. Yeah, you know that we may or may not use. Yeah, but it's the constant, you know building. Now I've ordered 20,000 gel capsules. They were used in the Opioid Diaries music video.
Speaker 2:There's a colorful scene with a girl's face coming out of pills. I remember that I had like 5,000 pills I used for that. But I came up with this idea that I want to kind of of emphasize the you know, the disparaging how would you say it? I want to emphasize the uneven keel in society about, like, the drug industry, just drugs themselves. Yeah, um, the series is going to be called, uh, designer drug.
Speaker 2:And I want to have, you know, a dress that I'm making. I have, I think it's, 300 syringes that I filled and sealed with red liquid in them and I'm, I'm making a dress out of this. I like, I'm making an actual dress out of all these. I don't know how yet, but I'm, I'm, you know, making it, trying to laying in this sea of pills, and you know, I want it to be, you know, the, the, the, the. I don't know how to put this right. But the typical blonde, yeah, to be there and she's got a tiara of needles, yeah, and it's it's what people have gotten away with in society versus what poor people have not. Yeah, for, you know, having a joint will go to jail for 20 years. Yeah, and that could be based on, uh, you know, color of skin, demographic, where you're, where you're, uh, you know where you are in class.
Speaker 1:There's some really interesting documentaries. It's like why do you go to jail more for crack than cocaine? And we know that?
Speaker 2:there's a lot of public figures that are very wealthy that do a lot of drugs. Sure, did he. Yeah, I didn't even know there was pink cocaine, but yeah, I I, that was an idea that I had, so I have to figure out. How am I building around this?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's safe to say like I see your photos and like they're really, they're almost telling a huge story in himself. You know, are you always like thinking of that big story that's actually behind the photo?
Speaker 2:Sometimes, but sometimes I'm afraid to tell it. Yeah, that's actually behind the photo Sometimes, but sometimes I'm afraid to tell it. To tell the story because I've learned to be very quiet when it comes to some of my opinions, and not that it's controversial, it's just in the climate that we're in. It's one of those things. I'd rather retire and have my activism for my privacy versus being overly public Because I've spent too much time broke. I don't even know if I want this part out, but having my opinions and the things that I believe in being a good person. I can't stand bigotry, racism. I really look at that and I will in person stand up for somebody. Publicly I don't really say much because I would like to be comfortable in life, financially and I remember too much what it's like to be broke and having opinions sometimes, you know, gets you canceled.
Speaker 1:You know that's what I think where we align. We align in a lot of ways, but I think both of us are about expressing to the world love right, and then through our work together, you know it's like we try to work on things that do have a good impact. You know it's like the 5013C. You know content for good that literally uses the camera to tell good stories and in that we're not directly saying don't be hateful, we're showing the world that what love is and kindness is you know, because we need it more than anything.
Speaker 2:I mean, I agree, hate will always win, hey, we'll, hey, we'll always win. But that's why, you know, fighting for compassion and love, it's so difficult, but I will always, you know, be a proponent of that.
Speaker 1:It's so tough. It's like I'm thinking about this video that I saw that's like just screwing me up lately, and it's it's this video clip series of like people caught on camera dropping off like their household dog and leaving them, and the dog always is like thinks it's a game or you know. It's like I just can't imagine thinking like that. It's like here's this and kids too, you know things a lot around. It's like I can't imagine what's going through somebody's head when they can just abandon something, leave something, hurt something. You know someone, you know it's like. That's why I think there needs to be more love direction in the world, because we're getting too desensitized to um, um awful things.
Speaker 2:Oh, we absolutely are, and I mean everything's cause and effect in this world.
Speaker 1:I mean, that's the power of this thing here. You know it's like a big reason why I've like faced so many fears around it, because this has been a big fear for me. I know being in front of it's a big fear for you, you know it's like, but it has to finally come down to. It's like we need more good people with good messaging. And what I find over and over again and that's why I have I go several of you to getting on here is the good people are. I'm not saying that everybody good is afraid of this thing. I'm not saying that at all, but a lot of really good people are afraid of this thing and that's why we need more good people getting in front of it, cause I say this all the time evil has no problem using this right.
Speaker 2:Zero, right, I mean, that's that's the whole. You know, uh, hate bait. Yeah, you know it's the easiest way to make money and I can tell you right now there's several times in my career, um, that I've made decisions that have, you know, been financially not great, because I couldn't go down that path, I couldn't hurt that person, I couldn't steal from that person.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's businesses I've worked with where I could have screwed people over bad You'll you'll never like get me to sell my integrity ever. You know it's like it's not worth it to me, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean, you know, trying to get people to be involved with those kinds of deals. I'm like, how desensitized are you? You're going to hurt this person, their livelihood, yeah, but I've seen others do it. I've seen others gain. I've seen people that have made I mean stupid amounts of money. But they can turn it off.
Speaker 1:They can just turn off emotion Sometimes you know, I see it all day long and that's what actually kind of probably there's a bunch of things that finally made me turn a corner. But it's like know a ton about business, you know, know a ton about fitness, know a ton about a couple of different subjects, and I see it all day long and what I see on social media is hurtful. It can make you bankrupt, it can harm your body. You know, it's like I got tired of it. You know they're all trying to sell you this thing for $99. That actually will derail you for years. You know, it's like that's so frustrating to me because the the audience too, is not the rich kid. The audience is people like you, you and I, unsuspecting people that don't know any better, otherwise they have the rich dad.
Speaker 1:They can go ask hey dad, what do you think of this thing that I just learned online and he'll say that's BS. Poor kids like you. And I will go hey, look at that. You know, it's like we're that audience, the sucker audience.
Speaker 2:Well, you and I didn't come from generational wealth, but now I finally understand what it is and I understand the difference of where I grew up, and you know I mean a whole nother class.
Speaker 1:It's not just generational money either. It's generational knowledge, right? Yeah, Our parents aren't teaching us these things, you know? So?
Speaker 2:you know, it's no fault to my, my parents. They didn't know any better.
Speaker 1:No, that's exactly my point.
Speaker 2:You know, that's what's. What's difficult is I finally now in my forties, I'm going, holy shit, this is where I invest, this is where I put money. Yeah, you know it's it actually.
Speaker 1:It's rather simplistic. That's what this show is about too. This is a charity show. You know it's like any money that's made on this show actually goes to fund small businesses. You know it's like, but like, more importantly than that, in my opinion, is like trying to give that knowledge. You know that, like generational knowledge that's being skipped. It's like now. I had to learn it over years and years of heartache. You know it's like, and that's why I bring people on like you. You know, then you can talk about these same things because knowledge, the right knowledge on a show you can trust.
Speaker 1:And, by the way, I want to make a point on the show today I will never, ever have somebody on this show that I don't think is valid for you. You know like I get people that apply to this show all the time, that have big names and big followings and all that stuff. Could that help me promote the podcast more? Yes, but not. I'm too protective of you guys. I will have somebody like you on because you are good for these guys. I will never have somebody on that's trying to sell their bullshit course. Yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's, there's so much of it. And this is a sad thing about you know, something like Tik TOK? Yeah, I, I was against Tik TOK like two years ago. It was like, oh it's stupid. My mom loved it and I was like I ain't doing it, it's a stupid site. I got on it and realized, holy shit, there is so many people on here that are you know, some people will push shit, but then there's 10 other people that will shit on them and say, no, that's bullshit. Yeah, there's financial advice Yep. There's fitness advice, yep. And then there's the people that course correct and say, no, we can show you why that's wrong. Yeah, so you're getting this amazing source of information and then you can go and look for yourself and go. Okay, cool.
Speaker 1:A lot of them are using data points and they're like pulling up the articles online and like there's some extremely clever creators on TikTok.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and I've you know, I've like just been blown away by it, but the translation for you yourself are heavily invested with, like YouTube, yeah, you, you think that's going to be the future and I think you've convinced me that too. So I was a little close minded of that about you know, a year and a half ago and I thought, no, you know, this TikTok is only where it's at, yeah, then I realized some of these people that are doing the small skits or whatever it is, they had big followings on YouTube also. Oh, yeah.
Speaker 2:They're utilizing several platforms.
Speaker 1:It's usually like the marketing driver to the YouTube channel, right? Or like, why wouldn't you do both? And then another point I just want to make really quickly is don't be holding to any platform. They don't love you. You know how many businesses I've seen that are like I actually have like quite a few people that I'm connected to right now that make an immense living from TikTok and they're fearing it right now because and I've told them this for years you need to use all of them, right, because you don't want to be beholden to Facebook. I've seen even the shitty meta stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you don't want to be beholden, these guys or Airbnb or Amazon.
Speaker 1:It's like you make your whole business on one of these platforms. They can take it away.
Speaker 2:You're putting too much risk on one thing, and I'm glad you said that, because when I started this, my space was this you know, it was just being ushered in and it was growing and I learned how to really utilize that system. You know how to post on somebody's wall a GIF or some of you idiots call it a GIF. I don't know what it's called. Whatever it is, I could be the idiot but you know a GIF flashing all of my images. I'm creating something exciting. Then we get the clicks. The people will come over. I learned this, but I was realizing I cannot rely on this, because when this goes away because they typically do, they do then my business is falling flat.
Speaker 1:I mean, there's a guy that built his own whole business on Facebook and there's tons. I can tell stories like this for hours, but they built their whole business on Facebook $350 million a year, company, something like that. And Facebook changed one thing in this algorithm zero overnight. You know it's like don't be beholden to these one platforms you use them. You know it's like don't be beholden to these one platforms you use them right.
Speaker 2:You use them like they use you, and you know you have to. You have to really understand the algorithm, something with the way Facebook and Instagram are. They're a mess. They're an absolute fucking mess, but you can still utilize it. Yeah, you just have to be cautious with it. Totally. Something like TikTok was one of the I mean, to me it was one of the greatest algorithms that there were, because it allowed people with smaller voices that were never heard to be seen.
Speaker 1:That's what people didn't realize in this whole meta TikTok war and that's what actually is going on right now with that People. It's not really about TikTok. It's about meta having a tremendous amount of power and they're lobbying against TikTok to get it taken down because there's their competition right. There wasn't that long ago that organic reach through Instagram and Facebook was really tough to do, you know, and then TikTok came along and they were handing them their lunch quickly because they allowed organic reach. Folks, it wasn't short form video that helped, it was organic reach right, I had.
Speaker 2:You know, I started my Instagram and I started to grow it and now it's. You know it's a complete mess because I don't stay in the consistency of what people in my audience want.
Speaker 1:Um, but you say one wrong thing. It's like we, we haven't like luckily I have this platform that goes to multiple places, you know but it's like we have that uh foundation for the foster kids and I happen to put out there in the world some stats. I heard from Lisa and like 90% of the 80% of the people on death row in California are from the foster care system, 60% of trafficking victims foster care system. I made a video about that on Instagram and I've been blocked ever since.
Speaker 2:Yeah, uh, there's strict guidelines that are in there, that, um anything about it. It's interesting. But if you read into the, into the uh, strict guidelines that are in there, that anything about.
Speaker 1:It's interesting, but if you read into the guidelines, they're they're strict in a way. That's ridiculous stuff, you know. And then, like he, a couple of things went on, you know that where, like he now, is like being diminished as well. And you know I was telling him I'm like, why are you just on one flat platform, use them all? You know it takes an extra couple seconds to put on like Tik TOK. You know Instagram, uh Facebook, youtube shorts.
Speaker 2:You know like, uh Pinterest even Pinterest is the third biggest search engine in the world. See and this is this is what I think the audience should know is you know what you're saying? Utilizing several platforms me being older, now I started with my space. I'm so grateful to it.
Speaker 1:There's by the way, david and I want to bring Tom back. Tom, reach out to us, please.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you're doing your photography and killing it. Yeah, Come back and start another platform. But even you know here's the thing I don't think that even if there was a MySpace, you know, brought back, it would have the same effect.
Speaker 2:It was in its moment it was in its time it worked for then. We evolved so fast with technology and social media that you have to go with the times. And my point is, as someone who's now older than when I started stubbornness, because you start to close off, you start to shorten your circle, cautious about who you're around, what you're doing. And my point is you can't be afraid to go with the change. You have to embrace things that are changing. If you hate them. To go with the change. You have to embrace things that are changing If you hate them. Every generation shat on the prior generation. You know Gen Z. Whatever they're shitting on Gen Z they're shitting on, they shit on us millennials. It has been over and over. You could literally go through and read every generation has said the same quote they just don't want to work anymore. And it goes all the way back to early print.
Speaker 1:You know like actually one thing I want you to weigh in on. I know you're using AI a lot these days. Like weigh in on that Cause that. I know that's been scary for a lot of people in this industry. It's like AI is going to take my job. You know it's like what are you doing to embrace AI?
Speaker 2:I mean, I was about two years ago. I was very resistant because I saw the capabilities and I thought, oh, this is going to replace, you know, my job. This is going to replace other people's job. You couldn't create models now to put clothing on. I think it's a bubble. I don't think it knows what it's going to be. It is the internet at its early phases. We don't know what it's going to be and it's scary, yeah, because where it's going, I don't know. Will it end jobs? Absolutely? Yeah, I know it's going to. Yeah, but you have to.
Speaker 2:This is what I say about evolving you have to be ready and try and get ahead of the curve and learn. Getting older it's because you're stuck in ways. The world does not work that way anymore. But for me, when I got to really look at AI and what it was for now, I thought about it as it's here use it as a tool. One of the first things I used it for was an ad that I was putting together for a company, a drink company, and I needed to know a sheet for them and I needed fresh fruit. Now, this was the summer dead summer in phoenix, yeah, and I needed exotic fruit, yeah. So I was either gonna have to spend two thousand dollars to import stuff from who knows where hawaii but then make sure that it looked, you know, photographic, like it could be photographed. Yeah, and I'm stressed about this because I'm like there's no budget for that what am I going to do with all this? Quickly was oh shit, I could make these and they looked picture perfect.
Speaker 2:I didn't know that ad it looks fantastic, yeah, and the thing is I'm outing myself with that because I know some people will say like, well, that's cheating. At the end of the day, I wasn't making artwork. I wasn't in the 16 fucking chapel. Yeah, I was making an ad for a client. Yeah, um, was it going to take me much longer and much more of a budget to go through and get fresh fruit and do all that? Yeah, but I put this together and not all the elements of it. There's a whole design. Uh, you know the whole composite is me designing it. Yeah, I just added some fucking AI fruit, yeah, and I was like wow, it's vibrant, it looks great.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, that's the thing too. It's like the, at the end of the day, the clients. You're going to say, hey, do you want me to spend $2,000 to ship in fruit, or do you want me to use AI? They're going to tell you use AI all day long.
Speaker 2:And don't quote me on $2,000, but I know it's not going to be cheap. Oh, I actually think.
Speaker 1:Well, and then, well, this is the way business works. It's like you'd spend X number of dollars to ship it in and then some of it would be bruised. Then you'd be spending X number of dollars to find another one.
Speaker 2:There's so much risk in that. So when I see AI, I'm like yeah, there's bit of it is ai. You know I've used things where I've done, where you know 99 of it is ai. But it's not just one image, that's just like hey, I prompted there it is it is. But it's not just one image, that's just like hey, I prompted there it is. It is deconstructed throughout to make sure that it is mine. It's not just some prompt.
Speaker 1:I've seen you do amazing work and I'm with you. I have other friends that are photographers and stuff and it's upheavaled their business. One of them's clip art for pets and she makes a tremendous living because everybody buys. It's pretty much. You can't look on a package without seeing her her photography for pets, you know. But she's embracing AI now too. You know it's like you have to or you get killed, you know.
Speaker 2:I mean it's, it's the world, it's moving fast, yeah, and the people that are going to stay stubborn and say, well, this is how it should be, you're going to get left behind.
Speaker 1:You have to absolutely embrace the technology and see what it'll do, and then at least be immersed into it to know what the pivots are within it.
Speaker 2:And even going back to production in the movie industry, for example, the great directors that have been around, that have had the formula of filmmaking. There will be a finite amount of them left and even if any because they won't be able to be funded we'll lose some of that creativity. But it doesn't mean that they should stop. Yeah, the Quentin Tarantino's Sure, you still will have some of those people. They just won't make the noise that those guys have. It's a different time and it's I. That's where I say it's sad.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I, that's where I say it's sad. Yeah, I think we're going to open it up for more people to get a shot, you know to, because and then AI is going to allow some of those like impossible things to be done, like on a smaller budget, you know, on a smaller budget, right, and I think that opens it up for the creatives of the world that probably weren't even heard of to have a shot at it, like I think your, your best time in life, especially in this industry, to have a shot is now.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, and here's the thing I see with AI is it runs its course fast, yeah, meaning when it first came out, you had mid journey or something that was coming together and everyone was like this is the future right now. And then it turned into like you know, people posting this like fake profiles and all that, and that rose quick like stuck, yeah. And then it's just starting to crash back down because people are tired of it. Yeah, it gets old quick. So it's going to do this. We're going to see spikes with some of this shit. We're going to see chat GPT oh no, it's going to take my job for this, yeah. And then it's going to get old, because then we're going to figure it out. We're going to go okay, we see through it.
Speaker 1:Now you know I use Chet GPT quite often and mostly it's like I use my mind against it and like it gives me ideas and stuff. But I had it build an amortization table the other day and it was wrong. Had I not known what it was supposed to look like, I would have been screwed Because I would have used it right and I had to even ask it. I'm like, are you sure about that? And then it's like and I told it how it was wrong and it's like okay, you're right, you know.
Speaker 1:It's like and so more humility than more humans these days it does you know, and it's like and I actually joked around with it I'm like this is the first time you've been, I've been smarter than you, and it's like, yeah, good, call on that one, or something like that Probably laughed.
Speaker 2:later on I got them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so there's a couple of things I want to get out of the way. What do you think is going to happen with, especially like music videos and stuff Like? What are you seeing that's going to change within that? Oh, it's already changed.
Speaker 2:Back when I started, you know, music videos had 50,000, 100,000. There was guys I knew that did like a quarter million for Tommy Boy. Yeah, funk junkies, they did a music video and apparently it was like a quarter million dollar. You know a budget? Yeah, that doesn't happen anymore. Yeah, big music videos are $20,000. Yeah, maybe 30,000.
Speaker 1:It's. Do you think that's taking something away, the budget being smaller, do you think we're not making as good a music?
Speaker 2:video. I think we're being a little more resourceful, but we're utilizing digital, the digital tools now. So more VFX. That's just the way it is. I don't really like it, but I can't fight against something that's happening when you don't have the budget there and, in all honesty, it has gotten cheaper, so we don't need all the stuff that was needed back in the early 2000s or the 90s yep, so you don't need all that big equipment. There's a lot you can do now with smaller equipment. So, understandably, the budgets have changed. The problem, I see, is the platforming. Um. Mtv was a central source. Yeah, to get on, that was a big deal, yep. Um, now anyone can make anything and put it out there.
Speaker 1:That's what I think is amazing.
Speaker 2:Well, I think it is amazing. What dictates popularity sometimes is stupidity.
Speaker 1:It it's, it's true, you know. It's unfortunately true, you know, let me. Let me ask you this too it's like if you're given the pie in the sky project right now, let's call it a music video project, just for fun. Who's the group? What are you doing? Let's call it a music video project, just for fun. Who's the group? What?
Speaker 2:are you doing, god? You know, I haven't even put thought into that. I'm kind of doing it. I'm working with you. Know the?
Speaker 1:offspring. I mean, we were both like that was the band when I was a kid. Yeah, you know it was like, and I remember driving down the road, you know like listening to that stuff on road trips and things like that. It's been a dream for me to work with you on that stuff.
Speaker 2:It's. It's been amazing, um, I mean, that's been something that that, um, that coming together, um, the other thing was the timing for me when I started working with them, like four years ago now. Um, it was during COVID. Yeah, they were actually going to release an album. Covid hit and all of a sudden they delayed it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then what happened from there is, they had one of my canvases in their studio and I get a contact from an art director and it basically was like hey, there's a band they want to see about you doing their album cover. And I was like, hey, there's a band they want to see about you doing their album cover. And I was like, okay, cool, whatever, I don't know, sure, let's talk about it. Yeah, a few calls later, name comes out, the offspring. I'm going oh, you're full of shit. I didn't believe him and I thought this is cruel because my business was hurting, because no one's buying posters or anything. Yeah, any merch during a pandemic. Yeah, no photo shoots, nothing's going on, sure, so you're just hemorrhaging.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that started. And then it was what it was. I did the album cover and then it turned into let's do all this artwork on the inside, and then I happened to drop it to the management that I was like you know, I'm a photographer first. The management that I was like you know I'm a photographer first, and they were like well, let's give it a try, come out for two days and do a two day shoot. Yeah, and now it's been almost four years of being the photographer for they're, they're great guys to really good guys, absolutely.
Speaker 2:You know it's, it's been, it's been a nice. You know it's been nice kind of being a part of that. That. That family too, yeah, very embracing just down to earth.
Speaker 2:But if you know, if there was someone else I would like to work with, I was going to make you do it. Yeah, you have to. Yeah, I mean it'd be. There's so many I could say. I mean everything from new music that I've discovered, from like ice nine kills, I'm like, ah, fucking love that band. Um to you know metallica, yeah, you know there's there's so many that on the top of my head I couldn't tell you. But any opportunity with anyone that I've loved in music, you know, if I could bring somebody back, I'd love to work with freddie mercury. I'd love to work a queen. Yeah, yeah, um, but funny story, I I didn't really get to work with him, but he was kind of.
Speaker 2:Brian may was a little bit a part of a little project, this recent album with the Offspring. There's interior artwork that's in the album that I did and it was based on some artwork that Dexter liked this book and he sends me this book and one of the authors is Brian May and I'm like, no, it couldn't be. No, it's that Brian May. So I have this book still and, you know, it was kind of the inspiration for some of the artwork in the interior of this, this medieval kind of French artwork, a blues, french Cool and not nothing but a few.
Speaker 2:You know, a couple of months later, I see their you know know instagram post and they're jamming out with brian may. Wow, and I was like, oh, that's fucking awesome. Um, but yeah, there's a lot of people that I would love to work with, um, discovering whatever new music. Yeah, and to me, it's not just about working with somebody that's that's got the fame. Yeah, I, I want to work with good people. I don't care if you're famous, you know, if you have the budget, of course, yeah, no, I think both of us really like to do cool stuff.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it also takes money to do cool stuff.
Speaker 2:It does, you know, and it's not that I need a big payday, it's not that I really want. I mean, I did the music video that was a lyric video for their last album and I put so much into it. And the reason why is because it was a learning experience for me to really push myself. Yeah, I went through and did VFX. Yeah, you know, we went to castles and coasters and filmed. You went to Vegas, california, you know, day in Vegas, um, california, for the big set, yep, um. But for me it wasn't about you know what can I put in my pocket. Yeah, I was looking at the budget and going you know what? How can I, you know, really push this and, you know, take care of the people that are involved. And I had so much fun with it.
Speaker 1:It, it was, it was great. I look forward to having many more of those projects with you, you know, and so um it's it's just the.
Speaker 2:The stress level out of time is like you know, that is so important when we've worked with good groups of people.
Speaker 1:You know, on the set of uh, the offspring music video, great actors, um you know, like to to deal with um, the makeup artists, the feel free to help me drop names because I'm spacing them right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you get elias and uh, shayana. Yeah, um, I mean there's, there's, so there's, um, I mean there's, there's, so there's too many people to really mention. There's a lot that has to go into it.
Speaker 1:And like when you're working with a good team, it means it makes the rest all so much fun. Yeah Right, it's like it could be a crappy project anyway. Which way you could say it? Not with this stuff, but in general, it's like it could be a horrible project. I used to do horrible projects with my employees. All the time We'd go empty a back lot or something you know together. But if the right team and the right people around, it could be fun.
Speaker 2:Oh, absolutely, and it's hard to find the team in a place like Phoenix because there is not that community. Yeah, but you know we have a friend, IROC, who's starting to put that community together and we're trying to build that more and more.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So he, I, I, I think what he's doing is right, but my, my final thought is it's not necessarily that the music videos I want to do music videos are fun. Yeah, um, I would really like to do a short. I'd like to, I like to tell a story.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I I want to continue like and I'll use the end of this uh episode to say that we are in Phoenix, we're based out of here, we do production. Daveed's my partner when we do heavy production work in that company and we also have a 5013C where we're going to be bringing out this year the first episode of our docu-series, which I'm really excited about. I'll probably drop some more in this episode. We're also working on getting a community together that wants to do charity around film Um, so we can help foster foundations within the Phoenix area. So there's a lot of ways that we're working on developing a community for to bring the camera about, and we're always looking to connect to good people in the film industry. So please get in touch with us. You got any final thoughts for today?
Speaker 2:Let's get fucking creative, let's do it 2025.
Speaker 1:Daveed, you would definitely be one of my top friends on MySpace, so whether you folks know that used to be the thing. I think you got 12 of them you could put up there and then you would move people up and down depending on how their friend's status, however, they pissed you off. Yeah, you would be in my group, my friend and I always enjoy also working with you.
Speaker 1:Um and uh folks, I hope you got a little bit out of this episode today. Um, what I really want you to get, um, the message home is like don't be afraid to start. Start with what you can. You never know when you're reinventing it, like David's done over and over again with the flashlight thing, or just making things work from home Depot. He, if he would have said from the beginning, I need the fancy camera just to start, you still wouldn't have started. Right, it's like, and now it's. It's. It's made your life, you know, like fulfilling for you, because this is what you enjoy. The home alone example, the yacht example I've given you so many examples today. Don't sit at home and not start because you don't have the fancy camera or the big truck for your landscaping company. Figure out the way you can start. If I can help you with it, leave a message in the comments. See you next time.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to underdogs, bootstrappers and game changers. This is for those of you that are starting with nothing and using business to change their stars, motivating people who disrupted industry standards. This is the real side of business. This isn't Shark Tank. My aim with this podcast is to take away some of the imaginary roadblocks that are out there. I want to help more underdogs, because underdogs are truly who change the world. This is part of our content for good initiative. All the proceeds from the monetization of this podcast will go to charitable causes. It's for the person that wants it.
